In mail service pharmacies and large retail pharmacies, prescription drugs are dispensed in a high volume. For such services, it is known to use an automatic pill dispensing system to carry out the dispensing of the prescription drugs automatically at a rapid rate and to label pill containers which can then be provided to the patient for whom the prescriptions were written.
A known automatic pill dispensing system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,771,657 issued to Lasher et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. In the patent, as shown in the schematic illustration of FIG. 1A, orders (e.g., orders to fill prescriptions) are received by a host computer 9 which forwards the orders to a distributed computer system including a central computer called Pharmacy Automation Controller 10 (PAC). PAC maintains an order file of the information about each prescription to be filled in an order including all of the information needed to fill each prescription, prepare a prescription label for each prescription and the information to print literature to go in a shipping container with the prescription or prescriptions. PAC updates the order file to maintain a record of the current status of each prescription being filled as it progresses through the automated system.
PAC 10 controls a set of PAL stations 14 which print prescription bottle labels, apply the prescriptions to prescription bottles, and load the labeled bottles onto bottle carriers, a carrier conveyer system 21 which carries the bottle carriers to different parts of the system, automatic drug dispensing machines 23 which dispense tablets or capsules into the prescription bottles in the bottle carriers as they are carried by the conveyer system 2, bottle cappers 25 which apply caps to the bottles, and OCP stations 29 at which the bottles are unloaded from the carriers and placed in the shipping containers corresponding to the patient orders. The conveyer system 21 carries the bottles in the carriers from the PAL stations through the automatic drug dispensing machines 23 to the bottle cappers 25 and then from the bottle cappers to the OCP stations 29. The conveyer system 21 also carries the empty carriers back to the PAL stations 14. The OCP stations each also have a literature dispensing mechanism, which inserts printed literature into each shipping container with the filled and capped prescription bottles. PAC 10 controls literature printers 31 which print literature for each prescription order and enclose the literature for each prescription order in an envelope, print a bar code that shows through a window in the envelope identifying the prescription order, and then place each envelope on a literature conveyer 34 which carries the envelope from the literature printers 31 to the OCP stations 29.
As shown in FIG. 1B, bottles to be automatically filled with the prescription drugs are introduced to the automated system by hoppers 37 which receive the bottles in bulk form and automatically feed the bottles to unscramblers 39. One of the hoppers 37 and one of the unscramblers 39 will be for large bottles of 160 cc. and the remaining hoppers and unscramblers will be for small bottles of 110 cc. The small bottle size can accommodate a majority of the automatically filled prescriptions. The large bottles are large enough for 91 percent of the prescriptions and are used to fill the prescriptions in that 91 percent which are too large for the small bottles. The remaining 9 percent of the prescriptions which are too large for the large bottles are filled by using multiple bottles. A large bottle and a small bottle will contain a volume required for 97.5 percent of the automatically filled prescriptions. In the unscramblers, the bottles are singulated and oriented so that the bottle opening first faces downward. The bottles are then righted and directed to PAL stations 14 on bottle conveyers 41 and 43, one for large bottles and one for small bottles.
In the above described conventional system, bottles from one order and corresponding literature are combined into one package. However, many orders include prescriptions for non-pill pharmaceutical products. For example, prescriptions may include liquid pharmaceutical packages, boxes and/or pre-packaged bulk bottles. In addition, as noted above, when prescriptions are filled and mailed to patients, the mail package may include literatures relating to the drugs in the package. The conventional systems are not configured to dispense and combine automatically the above-listed disparate pharmaceutical products into packages.